Evaluation for ‘the decoy’

Evaluation for ‘the decoy’

• 1.
  Evaluation For ‘TheDecoy’ Jordan Brown
• 2.
  In what waysdoes your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? When creating our media product ‘The Decoy’ we used, developed and challenged forms and conventions of real media products. We based our opening on the espionage sub-genre. This means that we had to include spy/crime related themes, so that it applies to the conventions. We looked at films such as ‘James Bond’ to gain ideas and to get a better understanding in what we must include. My job in the research stage was to analyse openings to previous espionage films, from this I learnt the a large majority of espionage films have a opening title sequence, therefore I researched into the title sequences further and realised that each were unique, so I decided that our opening had to include something like this, that’s when I came up with the paint in water idea. Moat of the opening were also quite thriller, and then became cliché, this is because they were intense, and it felt like the opening was building up to something , then the scene turned very calm, and anti climatic, this is something we tried to portray in our opening ,we done this by an intense running scene, leading to a quiet conversation. This is our attempt of making an interesting opening which applies to the conventions.
• 3.
  We have aterrorist character in our film, this antagonist would be tackled by spy's, and a ‘James Bond’ type character, which makes this film an espionage. Our terrorist is from Asian descent to provides a sense of familiarity with the audience. We used fairly dark lighting in the running scene, to create an ominous affect, where as in the dialogue scene the lighting is slightly brighter, to portray that the scene had slowed, and the thrilling factor is slowly fading out. We used quite up beat music to keep the tension flowing through the complete scene. The shot from the dialogue scene between the antagonist and protagonist of the story was shot with a wide shot; our intensions behind the shot was to convey the distance between the characters as they both represent two different archetypes within our society. “Benoit Ganesan” who plays the antagonist was given a balaclava as apart of his outfit; this was a convention developed from other real products to illustrate to the audience that he is a form of radical. Most of the conventions come from the film ‘Skyfall’ as this is the most similar film to our production. The antagonist and protagonist are both wearing black his is because even though the protagonist is deemed to be good, he still has a dark side as he is committing a criminal offence.
• 4.
  What kind ofmedia institution might distribute your media product and why? I believe that an institution like YouTube would distribute my product, this is because it will be a low budget film, the must cost affective way to promote my product, will be through social media , as it is the cheapest way, and I can aim it at the right the audience. However if our film was a big budget I believe a institution such as Columbia Pictures would distribute our product , because they have distributed the film ‘Skyfall’. They would be best fit for this role as they have experience in distributing big budget espionage films. Also is we used a large institution then the produces would have more control over our product, therefore us as group couldn’t explore, and wouldn’t be allowed to become film makers as much, because we wouldn’t have as much control over the final product, where as I we made the film independently then it would truly be our film.
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  But as wewant our film to be independent we will use our own media company to distribute our film. As it’s an independent film, we would take it to film festivals, such as Cannes Film Festival and Sundance film festival. I think this would be a good way to increase the popularity of our production. As our film is low budget a cheap compared to other institutions similar and good way to show it is by using Film 4, I think this will be the best way to distribute our product, as the film channel is growing in popularity, and the also help by funding some productions. Then I would like the film to be produced into DVDs/Blu-Ray depending on the popularity. If it was a bigger budgeted film Id hope it would get into worldwide cinemas, like Odeon and Empire. Then onto channels like Sky Movies as they have a large audience.
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  Who would bethe audience for your media product? The audience for our media product would be people from the age of 12, this is because some scenes will obtain some violence. The type of language used, will be fairly simple, so that a vast audience will be able to understand what is going on, and it will be easier to follow the story. The violence feature would be realistic, therefore it may be deemed quite scary to younger viewers , also it will have some adult content in the film, but not a lot this is why I believe it should be a 12 rated film and not a 15. Due to some of the scenes containing violence the film will appeal more to male’s, this is because our film focuses on the male gaze to deliver the scenes. I also believe our product shouldn’t be higher than a 12 rating because the film is based around a school, therefore the film will be relevant to this age group. The overall tone of the film, and the way it makes the audience feel may affect the classification. For example, a work which has a very dark tone which could disturb the audience would be less likely to be passed 12A even if the individual issues in the film were considered acceptable under the BBFC Guidelines. Similarly, if a work is particularly positive or reassuring this may stop it being pushed up a category from 12A to 15.
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  How did youattract/address your audience? For our end product we mainly used word of mouth, for others to gain knowledge about our product. We could also use social media, so that we can choose the market segment to aim our film towards, instead of aiming it to towards a wide variety of people, where some people may not show any interest to it. Also social media is a free from of promotion, therefore it is a perfect fit for us as we will be producing a low budget film, so money would be a worry as it is limited. With social media we can promote as much as we want, however a negative to this is that we still will have ty and attract people to our pages. We would also show our final product at film festivals, as this would be the most relevant place to show our audiences. We could do an question and answer at these festivals so that the audiences so that people gain more of a knowledge about our film and what we are trying to succeed. We also created a poster to raise the awareness of our product.
• 8.
  I produced atrailer showing all of the best bits from the film to attract the audience, this will portray the film to be really good, which would hopefully attract a mass audience. Also Film 4 could advertise our product , if the televise it, this would also be a good way to attract audiences because they are owned by Channel Four Television Corporation, which is a very popular institution, they own Channel Four, which has millions of viewers each day, so if we had an advert on that channel, then it will increase the popularity and awareness of our film. Our product could also have magazine articles, this would be an affective way to promote our product because if it was in a film specific magazine such as ‘Empire’ then the film would mainly attract our target market. How did you attract/address your audience?
• 9.
  What have youlearnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product? During the process of constructing our product I developed my skills within my camera abilities. I am already experienced in using a camera, however I never have to record things, I stick to photography, so recording footage, and using a tools like a tri-pod was something I’m not used to. I had to learn, and practise on getting a smooth pan, which was more difficult than I originally thought it would be. I also advanced my skills using Adobe Premiere, I learnt how do things such as editing in fade, and colour correcting scene to get the best look possible. I also learnt how important the use of a tri-pod is, this tool is important because it helps to obtain good camera angles, and it decreases any accidently movement in the shots. Usually I wouldn’t use one as I prefer to not be refrained from the type of shots I can have, I like to have the sense of freedom when I'm shooting. I used to depth of field to challenge and focus what the audience perceives in the scenes, it causes the audience to really think deeply what is really partaking in the scenes.
• 10.
  Looking back atyour preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product? Looking back at the preliminary task, I have received a better understanding and appreciation as it gave me the opportunity to test out ideas and execute them. Therefore after this I can learn from my mistakes and find out what I had to do to improve, and what I had to do to achieve a good final piece. This helped us with our final product, as we could improve our weak spots. We mainly struggled in executing the 180 degree rule. If I was going to re-do the task I may of picked a different sub-genre such as crime, this is because there would be more films, therefore I can experiment with different things. Within our final piece we learnt how crucial it is to obtain a steady camera, this is because if the camera isn't steady, then it may distract the audience from what is happening in the scene. I think that my group didn’t work very well together, this is because there was a lack of communication between us, if I was going to do this again then I’ll make sure everyone knows what's going.